OOTB Relationship Types deleted and recreated

Get Well Playbook

Base System Relationship Types Deleted and Recreated

A guide for how to manage customized base system relationship types

Table of Contents

Summary

Audience

Problem Overview

Executive Summary

How this playbook can help you achieve your business goals

How this playbook is structured

Problem Analysis

Upstream Causes

Downstream Consequences

Impact on Your Business

Remediation Plays

Summary

Analysis Play

Fix 1 of 3: Restore the Base System Relationship Types

Fix 2 of 3: Update the CI Relationships to the correct Type

Fix 3 of 3: Delete the Custom Relationship Type

Data Governance

Summary

Goal of this Playbook

The playbook addresses the following scenario:

One of the relationship types included in the base system CMDB has been deleted.

Someone has recreated (and customized) the relationship type. However, the recreated version isn't working. You need to restore the base system relationship types, import your customized settings to the base system versions, and delete the recreated (customized) versions. This playbook tells you how to do these tasks.

Details about this playbook

Author Emir Eminovic Date 06/22/2020 Addresses HSD # HSD0002253, HSD0008213 Applicable ServiceNow Releases All Releases Time required Approximately 1 to 4 hours

Audience

Configuration Manager or Configuration Management team

ServiceNow Admin

Problem Overview

To work properly, service maps use relationship types to establish connections between CIs.

In many service maps, the system IDs (Sys_IDs) for the CIs are hardcoded in the relationship types.

When a relationship type is deleted, and a new one is created with a different Sys_ID, the relationship types don't work and the service map connections fail.

Executive Summary

How this playbook can help you achieve your business goals

Using the base system relationship types helps to ensure that product features function as intended.

How is this playbook is structured

This playbook guides you through five plays.

The first play (an analysis play) lets you see if you have any customized relationship types, and if so, how many.

The next three plays are fix plays. You need to complete all three in order.

The first one restores the base system relationship types.

The second one imports your customized changes to the base system relationship types so you can still use the customizations.

The third one deletes the customized relationship types, as you no longer need them.

The final play (a governance play) describes the processes you can use to prevent recreating and customizing the base system relationship types.

Problem Analysis

Upstream Causes

Due to confusion, a new relationship type may get created instead of using one included in the base system of the CMDB.

A new relationship type may get created to address custom requirements.

Downstream Consequences

Data Consequence

Data will appear correct, but in reality, an invalid sys_id is referenced

Operation Consequence

Data will appear correct, but in reality, an invalid sys_id is referenced

App Consequence

Your base system applications and features may not work properly if the relationship types aren't configured correctly

Impact on Your Business

Lower MTTR Dependency Map views and Service Maps will suffer from malfunction

Decrease Operational Visibility Poor visibility due to islands of Data on Dependency and service Maps

Process Automation Queries that look up CIs based on OOB relationships for Reference lookups will fail

Audit/Compliance Audit queries might fail when they depend on OOB values to be present

Engagement Questions:

Have you created any custom relationship types?

Do you have a dedicated CMDB Architectural Review Process? How do you decide when to create a new CMDB Relationship Type?

Have you deleted any relationship types included with the base system of the CMDB?

Remediation Plays

Summary

Play

Analysis

What this play is about

Lets you see if you have recreated any of the base system relationship types. These are considered custom relationship types.

Required tasks

Run the Analysis Play script to find the custom relationship types, if any Fix 1 of 3 - Restore missing Relationship Type

What this play is about

Tells you how to restore (reimport) the base system relationship types Required tasks

Reimport the base system relationship types and then verify that this task completed successfully Fix 2 of 3 - Update Relationships to correct Relationship Type

What this play is about

Explains how to update your relationship types so that the correct types are used. Required tasks

Run the Fix Script to reassign the relationship types and then verify that this task completed successfully. Fix 3 of 3 - Delete Custom Relationship Type

What this play is about

Lets you delete your custom relationship types. Required tasks

Follow the steps to delete the custom relationship types and then verify that this task completed successfully. Data Governance

What this play is about

Includes guidelines and processes for managing relationship types. Required tasks

Follow these guidelines and processes to prevent recreating base system relationship types.

Analysis Play

What this Play is about

This play lets you see if you have recreated any of the base system relationship types. Any that you have recreated are considered custom versions and they may not work as intended.

This play includes an Analysis Plays script that you can use to find these custom relationship types.

Required tasks

Option 1:

Install CMDB and CSDM Data Foundations Dashboard from the ServiceNow App Store

Navigate to the CMDB Data Foundations Dashboard module in the left navigation menu

Select the Customizations tab

Select the Use of Custom Attributes line in the score card shows the current score

Select the Base System Relationship Types Deleted or Recreated report to view a list of base system relationships deleted or recreated. If you see a count of zero then this playbook is not applicable to you.

Option 2:

Run the QueryScript_OOBRelationshipsDeletedAndRecreated.xml as a Fix Script

Review the results of the script. The results show the number of custom relationship types you have, if any. If the number is zero (0), you don't have any custom relationship types. You don't need to do anything else. You don't need to use this playbook.

Otherwise, continue with each of the remaining plays in this playbook. Start with Fix Play: 1 of 3. Be sure to complete all three Fix Plays, When you have custom relationship types, output similar to the following appears

Note: The number of custom relationship types is highlighted in purple. The number of CIs using this relationship type is in green.

Before you continue

Write down the Sys_ID, the parent descriptor, and the name of the relationship type. You will need this information throughout the rest of the playbook.

Work on one relationship type (as shown in the results above) at a time.

Repeat the tasks in this playbook for each relationship type listed in the script results.

Fix Play: 1 of 3 – Restore the Base System Relationship Types

What this Play is about

This play tells you how to restore (reimport) the base system relationship types. Required tasks

Navigate to the sys_update_xml.list table

Apply the following filters: Type = CI Relationship Type

Target name = Contains the parent descriptor of the relationship

For example, to use the Feeds::Fed by as the target name, enter Feeds. Information similar to the following appears.

Important: Make sure that both the DELETE and INSERT_OR_UPDATE actions are shown in the Action column.

Select the original record (the one with the DELETE action) to see details about the record.

Make sure that the XML payload references the correct Sys_ID in the Base Relationship Type list . The updateset names should also match.

Click Show Related Record Related Link Ensure the XML payload references the correct Sys_ID (same as above step)

Review the contents of the Deleted Data tab and the Deleted Files – References tab

Click the Restore File button.

Click OK, and then click Done.

Navigate to the cmdb_rel_type.list table.

Search for the parent descriptor that contains the parent descriptor of the relationship.

You should now see 2 records in the CMDB_REL_TYPE table. Continue with Fix Play: 2 of 3.

Fix Play: 2 of 3 – Update the CI Relationships to the correct Type

What this Play is about

This play tells you how to update your CI relationships so that the correct types are used. This play includes a Fix Script you can use to reassign the relationship types.

Required tasks

Open the FixScript_ReassignRelationsipType.xml and make the following changes Change the customRel variable on line 13 to the SYS_ID of the custom relationship (from step 2 of Analysis Play)

Change the oobRel variable on line 15 the SYS_ID of the OOB Relationship (from step 3a of the Fix Play: 1 of 3) Sample setup

Run the script as a Fix script and review the results

The total number of relationships to be updated should match the number you have previously recorded in step #4 of the Analysis play

NOTE: If the numbers do not match, do this play again. You might also have to do the previous two plays again as well. Once the numbers match, go to step 4.

Change the dryRun variable on line 17 of the Fix Script to false

Run the Fix Script again and review the results to confirm the update

NOTE: You can rollback this transaction using the out of the box script rollback feature

Change the dryRun variable on line 17 to true

Run the script one more time and review the results of the script. You should see results similar to the following (specifically, you should see 0 relationships found with the custom type).

Proceed with Fix Play 3 of 3.

Fix Play: 3 of 3 – Delete Custom Relationship Type

What this Play is about

This play lets you delete your custom relationship types.

Important: Before you delete a custom relationship type, make sure that it isn't used anywhere else, such as in forms, scripts, or reports.

Required tasks

Navigate to cmdb_rel_type.list

Search for a name that starts with the parent descriptor of the relationship. For example, to find "Feeds::Fed by " search for Feeds

Open the record

Make sure that the Sys_ID is the same one you noted in step 3 of the Analysis Play. This is the custom relationship type you want to delete

Click the Delete Button and confirm the deletion

Navigate to the cmdb_rel_type.list table

Search for a name that starts with the parent descriptor of the relationship. For example, to find "Feeds::Fed by " search for Feeds

Since the relationship type is now deleted, there should be only one search result

Next Step:

If you have other custom relationship types, return to step 3a of the Analysis Play, and repeat each of the Fix Plays.

Otherwise, continue with the Data Governance Play.

Data Governance

What this Play is about

This play includes guidelines and processes for managing relationship types. These guidelines and processes help to prevent recreating base system relationship types.

Note the following points:

Use the base system relationship types as much as possible.

Before you create a custom relationship type, see if one already exists in another module. If it does, consider using that relationship type.

Required tasks

Periodically complete the tasks in the Analysis Play.

This helps you see if any base system relationship types have been recreated and customized. If you don't already have an approval process for creating relationship types, consider establishing one. Make sure the process is followed.

Congratulations

You have completed this Get Well Playbook.